Chapter 15
Nature Study
Renée
I’m an early riser; I always have been. Before the first crack of sunlight breaks over the world, I’m usually up and ready.
While Amber and the girls sleep for a while longer, I check on my house and garden for any damage last night’s storm may have caused.
But as soon as I step out of our guest room, the tantalizing aroma of fresh coffee guides me to the kitchen.
A full pot waits next to a couple of clean, mismatched mugs and a note written on the back of a piece of mail.
Good morning! Help yourself to coffee. I’m checking on the animals.
On the bottom of the note he drew a little sun with a smiley face next to a cup of coffee with tiny heat squiggles. It’s poorly drawn, but what he lacks in artistic skill, he makes up for in charm. I’ll give him that.
Coffee in hand, I step outside to a dark, muggy morning. It’s still unbearably hot even at this hour, and I’m thankful once again for Jonah’s generosity. We would have sweltered in our house if we had stayed.
I have to weave through several downed tree limbs scattered between our homes before I reach the garden. My yard has nothing but puddles and twigs. Nothing a rake and a controlled fire won’t fix.
Thankfully, everything in the gated garden is fine, and nothing should be thirsty for the next several days at least.
When I get back to his house, Jonah’s walking from the barn with the dogs and slows down to meet me. He twirls something small between his fingers. He’s in fitted jeans, barn boots, and a crisp white T-shirt. No one has any business being that attractive this early in the morning.
“I see you got my note,” he nods to the nearly empty coffee cup in my hand.
“Thanks. Are the animals okay?”
“Seems like it. Everyone’s accounted for and eating their breakfast.” A slight pause hangs between us before he lifts his hand to offer me...
“A four-leaf clover?”
“I always find them. I used to stick ‘em between two pieces of clear tape to preserve.”
My fingers spin the delicate trefoil. As a biologist, I know four-leaf clovers aren’t that rare. Yet, I still feel childlike wonder when I see one.
“Used to?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Haven’t done it in a while. I had hundreds. After a while, I just gave them away. Watching people get excited over it was more enjoyable than keeping them.”
Oh, for the love of God. Why does he have to say things like that? Now my insides are goo while I pretend I’m not the kind of woman who liquifies over sentimental nonsense.
He finds four-leaf clovers everywhere? Of course he does. Of course the universe just sprinkles little symbols of good luck at his feet like he’s some kind of whimsical forest prince. Meanwhile I’m over here stepping on the cracks in pavement and assuming every man is a walking red flag.
And the audacity to say he gives them away because he likes watching the joy on their faces. Ughh. I mean what kind of guy spreads good luck around just because it makes other people happy?
Certainly not Greg. He was the kind of guy who leeched off other people’s good fortune. He was more I found something valuable and I’m gonna bleed it for all it’s worth, not Here, take this tiny miracle, I like your smile.
Ughh. No. No smiling. I refuse to smile.
...Okay, perhaps a tiny one. Internally. And buried deep.
There’s a cynical part of me scrambling for something snarky, anything to reestablish the correct amount of distance, but it’s like trying to hold back a tide with a tissue.
Hands on his hips, he turns to gaze out on his property. “I’ll need to take the tractor out and clean up the fallen branches.”
“Do you want some help?” I ask because it’s a knee-jerk reaction to offer, but also, he helped us and I should return the favor.
He’s a bit stunned for a moment. “You don’t have to do that. I got it.”
“It’s no trouble. Truthfully, I’ve always wanted to hike around your property and explore.”
“Well, you have my permission to do that at any time.”
His open invitation warms something inside me, and I fight back a smile as my stomach swoops.
When Amber departs to prepare for work twenty minutes later, she brings Delta and Lo to join us outside.
We walk with farmer Jonah and his tractor.
He’s desperately trying to look like he knows what he’s doing and it’s not working.
As he’s figuring things out, we walk with him, gathering small branches and tossing them in his trailer.
We mainly stay on the path, which is flanked by flowering dogwood trees.
By my estimation, the deciduous trees were all planted about sixty years ago.
While they’re native to this part of North America, most are planted for their beauty.
Between their springtime greenish-yellow flowers, pink bracts, and distinctive bark, it’s one of my favorites.
As we reach the top of the hill, a huge dogwood tree, split in two, lies across the path roughly fifteen feet away. Yogi and Rugger check it out first, with warning barks to stop Jonah. He kills the engine and hops down to retrieve the chainsaw in the trailer.
“Is that a saw?” Delta asks, following Jonah like he’s the most interesting person in the world.
“This, Ladybug”—he starts, placing one foot on the fallen trunk and displaying the dirty tool like it’s on a showroom floor—“is a Husqvarna 450 Rancher 20-inch gas chainsaw, with 3.2 horsepower and a 2-cycle X-Torq engine.”
Lo runs up to touch the handle.
“Can I use it?” Delta asks.
He shrugs and takes the safety glasses from his head to hand over. “Sure.”
“No!” I bark. “Girls, you can drag the pieces he cuts off into the trailer.”
“Oh man,” Delta whines.
“She’s gotta learn sometime,” he says.
“She’s nine years old, Jonah. Cool it.”
“I’ll be ten soon.”
“Perfect,” he smiles. “I know what I’m getting you for your birthday. Alright, now stand back and watch me be really cool and manly.”
He rips the machine to life, and the girls cover their ears. They look so cute in their little gardening gloves and jeans. He cuts limb after limb as the dogs help us drag everything to the trailer.
After five branches though, the girls give up and leave us to search for nearby fairies. Yogi tags along with them while Rugger stays back and helps me haul limbs in exchange for butt scratches.
Jonah and I swap jobs midway, as he handles the heavier wood pieces.
Whenever he turns his back to me, for only a couple seconds, I watch his broad shoulders taper into narrow hips.
Strong back muscles work underneath his white tee, and both his shirt and my mind are becoming dirtier with each passing minute.
I want to ride this man hard and wet. I want to drive him like a fully insured rental car.
The imagery holds me captive, and the next thing I know the tree’s finished. When I kill the chainsaw, Jonah hands me a bottle of water before taking the last few pieces back to the full trailer.
As he gets on the tractor, I gather the girls so we can go to the designated burning area. When the tractor doesn’t start up, heat floods his face as he attempts to fire it up again and again with no luck.
“Shoot,” he mutters, and jumps down to open the engine hood.
“Do you have any idea what you’re looking at?”
“Nope. But my dad does.” He takes a picture before shooting it off in a text. “Girls, did you find any fairies? I could really use some of their magical dust right about now.”
Lo shakes her head and Delta sighs dramatically. “We didn’t see any.”
“They must be hiding. Okay girls, looks like we’re hoofin’ it. I’ll come back later for the tractor.”
As we walk around his property together, Jonah and I clear away the easy debris, and the girls continue their fairy hunt with the dogs.
“What kind of tree is this?” Jonah asks, pointing to the same kind of tree we chopped up moments ago.
I shoot him a side eye. “You learned about it in my class.” The wince he gives is so cute I can’t help offering him a little help. “Its binomial name is Cornus florida and it’s monoecious.”
His pace slows and he rubs his neck. “Um... what does monoecious mean again?”
“It means it has both male and female flowers, so every one of these trees can produce fruit.”
“Trees have different sexes?”
I sigh. “Yes. We covered this a lot in class. Did you do any of my assignments?”
He shoves his hands in his pockets and kicks a pine cone off the trail. “I did some, but... I’m sorry. It’s probably pretty frustrating having students like me.”
“Have them every year. I’m used to it.”
“So, I wasn’t exactly memorable, huh?”
“I wouldn’t say that. No one tried charming me as relentlessly as you did.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot his face-splitting grin. He replies, “Oh, really? Well, you’re a tough one to crack. You’re the only person I’ve never been able to win over.”
“I have a hard time believing I’m the only person who has ever told you no.”
He pauses, checking how far away my daughters are before leaning in. “You may have told me no, but when I’m alone, I think about you screaming yes.”
Despite the summer heat, every hair on my body stands up and my downstairs region tingles with electricity. I have to remind myself how to walk and breathe after a statement like that. Jesus Christ. I inhale deeply to calm down and try to navigate through the lust-fueled images.
He always danced around explicitly saying it, but it was clear when he was in my class that he was willing to offer his body in exchange for passing grades.
In the privacy of my depraved mind, I consider what would have happened if I gave in back then.
He’d lock my office door before getting on his knees.
I’d punish him and make him earn my forgiveness.
He’d earn those grades all right, and based on our encounter at the strip club, I know he has the mouth to back it up.